


after the insects have made their claim

by aMassiveDisappointment (BadOldWest)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pastoral, far from the madding crowd, maybe some non-canon smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 05:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12029430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOldWest/pseuds/aMassiveDisappointment
Summary: Far From the Madding Crowd AU. Jyn Erso has the enviable problem of coping with three suitors simultaneously. The first to appear is Cassian Andor, a farmer as ordinary, stable, and sturdy as his name suggests. Perceiving her beauty, he proposes to her and is promptly rejected. He vows not to ask again.





	after the insects have made their claim

**Author's Note:**

> Should I stop starting projects? Yes. Will I? No.

“What’s your dog’s name?” Jyn was ruffling the ears of the elderly thing, seated on the hay wagon as she watched him work the field. The dog was so old it didn’t tolerate her affection as much as it just refused to be moved either way. While it wasn’t very helpful, to his farm or more importantly to Saw’s, all turned a blind eye to this kind of thing because of the youth of the two people, Cassian getting some pleasant company and Jyn, well, in the hopes of making a match for her. Jyn remained intentionally dense to this scheme. 

“Kay,” Cassian didn’t look up from his work. 

Despite his curtness, slowly revealing to be shyness, Jyn liked him. He’d caught her wandering in the trees, once, with her strong legs gripping her horse, laid across it’s back and looking dreamily up at the branches as it walked on. He’d called her over the next time he saw her walking, and she apologized for the trespass, but he forgave before she ever knew the indiscretion and told her she was welcome. She’d become a fixture of that farm, a daily presence, and one that warmed that summer into the fall. 

“Well, what’s that one’s name?” she pointed to the puppy, a nearly identical black dog save for the lack of white on the muzzle. Cassian did look up at that point, smiling. 

“Kay II.” 

She laughed, leaning back on her elbows, and her company quietly astounded him in how pleasant it was, how it could be like this someday. 

"Do I amuse you?"

She smiled, but shook her head. The smile was what didn't lie. 

He could stand to amuse her once in a while. 

 

He brought her a lamb. 

She entered the small sitting room in Saw’s cottage, wildflowers in her fist, and Cassian was there with a lamb in his arms, and dressed in his Sunday clothes despite that. 

“Miss Erso,” he held the animal gently but awkwardly. “I’ve brought you a lamb.”

It was small, with silky curls on the legs and tail, rabbit-like ears, and bleated pitifully. She gathered it in her arms, thanking him. 

“He was born to soon and won’t last the winter, so it will take more care than I can give as a shepherd of a whole flock. I thought you might rear it instead.”

The small thing was already sucking her fingers, looking for food. There was a softness to her face that dulled her dry wit as she scratched those ridiculous ears.  

Saw left them to talk quietly.

“The lamb is not the real reason I came.”

Jyn barely glanced up, because the lamb seemed reason enough. 

“Go on,” she laughed as it tried to latch to her chin, its gums squeezing on her skin.

He glanced back for privacy’s sake, Saw had truly left them with on the slight seam of an open door, which was all he could have hoped for. The purpose of proposal seemed obvious to all but Jyn, but he would like his attempt to not be heard in details. 

All he knew was the land he would someday own, once he worked it off, and Jyn being there with him seemed to be the only improvement on that life. 

“Would you like to marry me?”

The afternoon light hit her eyes when she finally looked up at him. Her feet suddenly felt very heavy against the stone floor. 

She laughed softly, breathlessly, “No.”

His pride swelled in his throat, choking him for a moment.

“Perhaps I should go.”

_“There are just things to consider.”_

Her eyes flashed She was not a light woman, and thus would not be given lightly. He straightened his shoulders and chose to face these things to consider head on.

“Is someone waiting for you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

There was a finality to it, and he needed no further insult to rejection, if he wasn’t rich enough it would not be remedied with her reminding him, nor would he ever be rich. He could move up the ranks as a soldier if he wanted wealth, he wanted his land instead. 

He made a quiet excuse to leave that was at least half-true, the animals would need feeding soon, but he wasn’t halfway up the hill separating his farm from Saw’s when she caught up with him, breathless.

“I didn’t say why.”

He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath before turning. 

“I’m too independent for you,” she said, and there was a smile that was in spite of herself, not him, “If I ever married I’d want someone to tame me and you’d never be able to do it. You’d grow to despise me.”

He kept his eyes on her face, his wounds under the surface. He would like to tend them in peace. 

“I would not,” he said, because it might as well be said.

She was so lovely, even in rejection, and he would not let that loveliness beguile him again.

She’s wandered onto his property by accident. She wasn’t meant to feel welcome there, but she did. And she liked the part of his property that was just his _being;_ his kindness to his dogs and his focus and his gentle nature. But there was something in how bored she felt now, and how bored she would feel in the passing years, and how that boredom would turn to something he would despise in the passage of time. Cassian was utterly satisfied, Jyn had observed his lifestyle and was not. He seemed amused by her wildness, and she needed to be tamed to be able to bear it. 

Cassian would just let her be, and she was convinced that would be her downfall. 

**Author's Note:**

> (All sheep behavior is based on experience, my dad actually had a lapse in judgement at an auction when I was five so for about twelve years of my life we had sheep in our yard, breeding, dying sheep, so I had to foster lambs as a child a lot).


End file.
